Amos 6:1, 4-7
1 Timothy 6:11-16
Luke 16: 19-31
Back in January I had one of those God moments. You
know the kind -- when the Gospel comes to life before your very eyes.
I am reminded of it with today’s Gospel.
As I was readying the
Church, a big, tall homeless man came to the side door near the piano at
Our Lady of Perpetual Help and knocked. I opened it up and welcomed him. He asked if he could hang out for the hour of
so until the funeral began. I told him,
“Of course.”
As we talked, he shared
with me the despair of living on the streets.
It was a cold, raw January day in Everett. The temperature was about 40
and a frigid rain was falling.
As we sat in the Church,
he confided in me that he was brought up Catholic -- living on the reservation
as a kid. He said he loved our beautiful
Church, and actually choked-back tears as he shared how thankful he was just to
rest his feet and warm his bones.
difficult, but this too shall eventually pass and my friend Ben will
someday sit at the banquet table with the Lord with Jesus serving his every
need.
As he talked
about his reality, I reminded him of God’s reality. This human experience can
be
difficult, but this too shall eventually pass and my friend Ben will
someday sit at the banquet table with the Lord with Jesus serving his every
need.
He said he liked that thought.
I thought of this Gospel passage as I shared it.
Former Pope Benedict
said something profound about what’s expected of the People of God while
we wait for that heavenly banquet.
He said this,
“In recent years it has been
encouraging to witness the positive signs of a worldwide growth in solidarity
towards the poor. But to turn this solidarity into effective action calls for
fresh thinking that will improve life conditions in many important areas, such
as food production, clean water, job creation, education, support to families,
especially migrants, and basic healthcare.
Where human lives are concerned, time
is always short, yet the world has witnessed the vast resources that
governments can draw upon to rescue financial institutions deemed 'too big to
fail.'
Surely the integral human development
of the world's peoples is no less important: here is an enterprise, worthy of
the world's attention, that is truly 'too big to fail.'”
The story
of the rich man and poor Lazarus is only found in Luke’s Gospel, a Gospel that
shows an overriding concern for the poor and marginalized, and is lazer-focused
on social justice.
The
story is an echo of Jesus’ Beatitudes,
“Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you
who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.”
The
story also echoes Mary’s Magnificat: ”the
hungry he has filled with goods things; the rich he has sent away empty.”
Jesus’
story is directed right at the hearts of the wealthy Pharisees of His day, but is
also a shot to the hearts of our wealthy society here today.
Like it
or not, we are the rich man in this story.
We live
in a land of abundance, with every creature comfort known to humankind. We are the envy of all the poor of the world.
Yet all the while, people in our society live on the streets, mired in
addiction, mental health crisis, and abject poverty.
In
today’s Gospel story, the rich man’s lack of charity and responsibility to his
fellow man condemns him to flames of the netherworld.
As one
bible scholar puts it, the rich man’s greatest sin is one of omission (That “what
I have failed to do” line we used to say in the Confiteor). This omission has
fashioned a great chasm between the rich man and Lazarus.
The
danger of wealth and power in Jesus’ eyes is that they blind us to the kingdom
of God both in this life and the next.
Our
ambivalence, our apathy are shameful in God’s eyes.
Remember,
unless we’re part of the solution, we’re a part of the problem. We can’t just say, “poverty, homelessness,
addiction … not my problem.”
God wants us to know “how much of a role we play in
our (own) salvation.”
God asks us to humbly be open to His will in our
lives, to feel the tugging at our own hearts when we see someone truly in
need. I know it’s sometimes difficult to
hear God or have His message break through all the noise in our society. But we can’t just say, “not my problem,” or,
from our privileged perches, condemn the poor for being lazy or people who just
need to get their acts together.
The CEO of Salt and Light Catholic Media Fr. Thomas Rosica put it this way:
”The rich, the powerful, and the
(so-called) 'just' find it very difficult to be humbly open to God; they are
full of confidence in their own treasures and securities. The only real
security is the one based on friendship with God… to be a servant of human beings and of God
after the example of Jesus of Nazareth.
As human beings, we are radically weak
and constantly try to cover up our weakness by finding security in power, wealth
and status. This deception will ultimately be unmasked by God's act of
judgment.”
Another bible scholar sees this very story in Luke’s Gospel
as a key that unlocks the door to “salvation” from Jesus’ perspective.
“On one hand, it holds up a cold mirror to our social realities,
challenging us to either ‘live against’ or ‘die with’ the inhumane disparities
that divide our social landscape. Then it invites us—like the epilogue of (the
Road to) Emmaus (story)—to reread the Bible, reread our (salvation) history,
and reread our own social maps, and then dedicate our discipleship to justice
and equity. This, for Luke, is the key to ‘salvation.’ And Christians who would
rather daydream about the ‘hereafter’ will be in for a rude awakening about how
the ‘here’ persists in that ‘after.’” 
If the words of this Gospel message
truly afflict the comfortable here in this Church and comfort the afflicted
just outside our door, then it’s done the job Jesus intended.
So, as we lay our heads down on our pillows tonight and
thank the Lord for the many blessings in our lives, let us also ask Him to
guide our hearts as His disciples to see and respond to the poor man or poor woman
sleeping at our door.
